


we'll light up the sky as we burn it down

by andibeth82



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Fusion, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 14:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Meet me in Montauk</i>, she says, and he hears it but forgets.</p><p>
  <i>Meet me in Montauk.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll light up the sky as we burn it down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudAtlas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/gifts).



> So, I was all set to write you some Clint/Carol fic, as I do love me some rarepairs. And then I decided to take advantage of your love for AUs instead, and this happened. This is basically a fusion of Eternal Sunshine, in that I tried to keep certain scenes/notes from the movie but also incorporate some MCU stuff and hopefully it ends up to your liking. :)
> 
> Thank you to **gecko** for beta, and for helping me brainstorm this thing into existence. As usual, without you, this would probably be a lump of words.  <3

_Meet me in Montauk_ , she says, and he hears it but forgets.

_Meet me in Montauk._

 

He calls from the platform of the train station, because, yeah, he’s going to be late for work.

Actually, he thinks as he hangs up the phone, late is an understatement. He won’t be going in at all. But he doesn’t feel like calling back just to add that, and so he lets the thought go from his mind, electing instead to take the path down to the beach.

He’s still unsure what brought him out here, why he had decided to make the run to the other side of the platform for no reason. Dented car and stress aside, Clint’s never really been one to feel like he has to make his life better by trying to run away, though he has to admit this seems like a pretty reasonable attempt.

(Actually, it’s a laughable attempt. Clint’s been sent all over the world for various reasons, he’s slept in motels that have been filled with roaches and also the world’s finest vodkas, he’s shivered in the cold of Yakutsk and burned in the deserts of Death Valley. If Clint wanted to go anywhere, if Clint wanted to run away, he sure as hell could have picked any of his previous SHIELD missions and done so. He didn’t need to go to _Montauk_.)

But he’s here, and so is she, and she looks up from where she’s got her toes in the sand, sends a smile in his direction.

“Do you ever stop and think about what we are?” she asks a little thoughtfully, crossing her arms as the cold wind cuts around both of their bodies. She doesn’t bother to wait for him to respond before she continues. “We’re two people who are living, breathing…these amazing creatures who are _ruling_ the world but one day…one day, we’ll be nothing more than dust. Parts of the ocean, maybe, a reincarnation of ourselves in fish or water.” She pauses, as if to let her words sink in. “Right now, we’re at the top of the food chain, but at some point, we’ll be no less important than the grains of sand between our feet.”

Clint stares out at the sea as she talks, the angry waves thrashing wildly against an otherwise calm front.

“Your shoes,” he says finally, as water splashes over her thin loafers and she looks down with a shrug.

“Oh. That’s okay. I’ll buy new ones.” She speaks the words with an air of indifference, as if she’s not going to mind the fact that her feet will be wet for the rest of the day – despite the impromptu beach outing, this isn’t summer, and Clint can already feel the cold seeping into his bones, where it holds on and refuses to let go.

When he blinks, air and sea and sand fading from his gaze, there’s no one in front of him and no one behind him, there’s no one anywhere and the water is washing away any evidence of footprints.

The cold continues to pull at his bones, and Clint begins to wonder if it’s all a dream.

 

_He’s got his headphones in and is halfway through a bagel, and that’s the excuse he gives for not hearing her when she sits down next to him on the train._

_Because, he thinks, any normal person would have probably asked if a seat was taken before they actually claimed it. But when he looks at him with a glare and she returns the look with a raised eyebrow, he considers maybe she actually_ did _ask, and he just hadn’t realized._

_“Sorry,” he apologizes after a moment, shoving one headphone off of his ear. “Didn’t hear you.”_

_“Oh,” she says, looking a little startled. “That’s okay.” She smiles, then. “I didn’t actually ask.”_

_Clint sighs in frustration, putting his headphones back in, and gets about another two bites into his food before he realizes he can’t stop his eyes from straying to the girl who has now officially taken up residence next to him._

_She’s slim and red-haired and, Clint thinks, gorgeous, if_ gorgeous _was a word he would use to describe people, because usually he avoids using lines that sound like they came out of romance novels. She’s got two small strips of blonde around her ears, a lightness that trickles into the rest of her scalp, offsetting the blood that’s spilling over her shoulders, a voice that sounds like a raspy wind and lips that are set in what looks like a perpetual half-frown._

_“So where are you going?”_

_Clint hesitates._

_“Montauk.”_

_“No kidding,” says the girl, smiling big. “Me, too.”_

 

Paris is laughing under the stars, a boat on the river, sharing a kiss under the Eiffel Tower and each other’s cigarettes during an impromptu date night at the hotel bar.

Germany is hiding behind a concrete wall as gunfire rains on both of their backs, she thinks that’s the moment he finally says _I love you_ but she’ll never quite be sure because it’s too loud and they’re too close to death to think about last words and declarations and what can just barely be heard over resounding canons that spell out their doom.

Switzerland is getting caught in a rainstorm on their way back to the quinjet, a surprise opening of the sky that causes both of them to scream, Clint because his arrows are going to get ruined and Natasha because a wet leather suit isn’t exactly the definition of comfortable when there’s no other change of clothes available. Their first kiss is sloppy and messy and tastes of sweat and salt water and the blood that’s running down his face from a nasty cut in his temple, mingling with the red from her split lip.

Budapest is…

Budapest is what Natasha chooses to erase first.

 

_“Coffee. Black.” Clint slides into the diner booth, and he doesn’t look up until the cup has appeared in front of him._

_She’s followed him here, too, the girl (Natasha, her name was Natasha) but even though they’ve just introduced themselves she’s not sitting with him, electing instead to sit in a booth a few tables over, which, in the otherwise empty restaurant, makes him feel both frustrated and stupid. On the third sip, he catches her eye, and the small bottle of alcohol that she’s quietly dumped into her own cup._

_“I just don’t like to get too close,” she says hesitantly, raising her mug before putting it down. “I like to keep my distance.”_

_“Keeping your distance would have been a lot easier if I didn’t already know your name,” Clint points out, and Natasha smiles faintly._

_“That’s true.” She gets up, and moves slowly towards him. “Can I sit down, then?”_

_Clint shrugs, figuring that this time, at least she had actually asked permission. “Sure.” At his words, she all but collapses into the seat, tilting her head slightly._

_“Why do you have those?”_

_“What?”_

_Natasha gestures towards his head and he realizes suddenly that she’s referring to the purple band of the hearing aid that snakes over his ear, the one that is normally hidden by longer strands of hair. He reaches up self-consciously, avoiding Natasha’s eyes._

_“Family souvenir,” he says, the words coming out more lightly than he intends them to. “But hey, if I’ve gotta be disabled, I guess I better look stylish, right?”_

_Natasha laughs under her breath. “You’re not the only one who’s disabled,” she says, shaking her long sleeves back until Clint catches faint lines of scars along her wrists. “But mine never got a choice about being stylish.”_

_Clint sucks in a breath and Natasha regards him carefully._

_“Sorry. I didn’t mean to drop that on you. I’m normally not this open, it’s just…you’re different.”_

_“Different,” Clint huffs out, picking up his coffee. “Is that a good thing?”_

_“Maybe,” Natasha allows, leaning over on her elbows, and Clint sighs._

_“Look, I appreciate the fact that you’re making small talk and all that, but aside from your name, I don’t even know who you are.”_

_“Yeah,” says Natasha, looking sad. “I know." She pauses. "So who do you want me to be?”_

 

He’s moved back from their shared home in Park Slope to his own apartment, the one that’s falling apart, the one that she hates because she’s convinced he’s going to kill himself or someone else between the loft and too many appliances plugged in at the same time and the broken window. But there are still things of her own that have found a place within his walls over the years, mugs and dishes and clothes and shampoo bottles and books, so many things that every time she thinks she’s gotten the last of it, she remembers something else that causes her to make the forty-five minute trip back to Bed Stuy – this time, it’s her favorite pair of sleep socks.

He’s taking a side trip to somewhere Natasha’s not privy to, which means he hasn’t really been back here since he moved out, and the lights are off when she enters, dishes drying on the counter. Belatedly, she remembers that must be because the last time she was in the apartment, _she_ had left the plates out on the counter by accident. She lets herself feel one small pang of guilt followed by a touch of regret before she shakes it off and moves into the bedroom. She’d already spent too much time feeling bad about herself, about them, to stoop to the level of doing so in his house like a lovesick teenager.

It’s that fact she keeps reminding herself of as she stares forlornly at the bed, resisting the urge to curl up on the pillows she knows still smell like him, in the bed that still smells like him, and she steels her mind against her emotions as she starts to root through his drawer. Unearthing the missing pair of socks (which _of course_ are shoved all the way into the back under piles of underwear and various receipts and pieces of wrapping paper), she also manages to catch sight of a small white business card with perfect black lettering. The name causes her to look closer and Natasha brings it forward, angling it into the light.

_Lacuna._

Natasha lets out a noise, the words swimming in front of her, and then slams a hand down into the open drawer. It creaks and then drops a little on its hinges, enough for Natasha to realize it’s probably broken, but she hardly cares. She’s out the door in less than ten seconds, shoving the socks into her purse, suddenly desperate to get away, to get out, to be alone.

She gets a few steps from his apartment before she realizes that she’s crying, her breaths coming in gasps as she tries to control herself, and she hates herself for falling apart like this because it’s not who she is, not at all.

But then again, this wasn’t him running off and finding another person to have as a partner or as a fuck buddy, this wasn’t him drowning himself in alcohol like an irresponsible child that she had to watch and worry about, this wasn’t him refusing to pick up the phone because he didn’t want to talk to her.

The goddamn idiot had _erased their memories._

 

_“I have a question,” Clint says when they’re lying in bed together and Natasha turns her head so that she can meet his eyes._

_“I might have an answer,” she responds and he kicks her lightly in return as a breeze cycles through the open window of the house on the beach. They’re supposed to be in Madrid tomorrow morning, their flight leaves in eight hours and Natasha wonders if they’ll even make it to the airport._

_“What do you think about coming to live with me?”_

_“Excuse me?” Natasha sits up in bed to find Clint grinning at her, showing a full set of teeth. “Why would you want to me to do that?”_

_“Why not?” Clint asks, still lying down, apparently unfazed by her response. He pokes her in the side. “Beats screwing each other in the field, or at work.”_

_Natasha sighs, lowering herself back to the bed. “You think I can just…move in with you? As if I have no history, no worries, nothing to hold me back?”_

_“I didn’t say that,” Clint says, now sounding put out. “I know you can’t just come live with me tomorrow. I’m asking if it’s something you want to do. At some point. At any point.”_

_Natasha stills, listening to her own breathing and quiet waves of the sea that ebb and flow against the smooth, salty air. It had been months since Natasha had officially joined SHIELD, since she had officially become Clint’s partner, since they had moved from partners to more than that, to knowing each other’s bodies and secrets and the most dangerous parts of themselves, the parts that they usually chose to close off to others._

_“Promise me you won’t live like a slob,” she says finally and he makes a sound like a wounded animal._

_“I do my dishes.”_

_Natasha smiles. “That’s about_ all _you do.” The waves crash loudly again as she snuggles into his side and he nips at the base of her ear._

 

Budapest is what she chooses to erase first.

She’s halfway through scraping her nails into his back when she realizes she doesn’t want to forget.

She’s halfway through screaming his name as he comes inside of her when she realizes she wants to _remember_.

 

_Natasha likes it best when they wake up tangled inside each other, because it makes her feel safe and it makes her forget that she’s an assassin._

_(A killer. A mercenary. A threat.)_

_“Sorry,” she breathes when she detaches herself from his side, wiping blood from where his stitches have split open. He smiles slowly, his eyes still closed._

_“Not the first time we’ve fucked and ruined your handiwork.”_

_“No,” Natasha says, matching his grin. “It’s not. But still, I’d rather you not die.” She leans over to kiss him and then nudges his shoulder. “So sit up, please.”_

_He does so grudgingly as she gets up, walking to the bathroom of the safe house and gathering a few wet towels, which she uses to loosely prod at his injury. He sighs, bowing his head into her hair._

_“Extraction’s going to be another few hours,” Natasha says, checking her phone after she’s re-applied some bandages. “I think you’re pretty drugged still, but let me know if you need anything.”_

_“I’ve already got everything I need,” Clint says lazily, attempting to waggle an eyebrow despite his current state and Natasha rolls her eyes._

_“If you get sappy on me now, I’ll_ know _that you’re almost about to die.”_

_“Hey,” Clint says, reaching his hand out, his voice suddenly turning serious. “I’m allowed to be sappy when I’m in a good mood.”_

_Natasha wonders how anyone could be in this situation, sweating and bleeding, and possibly be in a good mood, because the whole thing seemed ludicrous._

_And then, when she's trying to get it all back, Natasha will remember how soft his skin felt, how gentle his lips were, how she suddenly_ got it _when his fingers pressed into marks and bruises, the ones that are fading on her skin as much as the memories are in her head._

 

_Brooklyn._

“You are a stupid fucking idiot if you think that you can commit -”

_San Francisco._

“I really like this ice cream, though. I think it’s better than anything we have at home -”

“Natasha, I swear to god if you don’t wake up right now, I will never make your favorite coffee again. I’m serious, don’t you dare pass out on me, I can’t lose you -”

_Fade to black._

 

Time will pass, and she’ll ask about Budapest. He’ll reply that they remember it differently and she’ll laugh, because it’s true, before she realizes how much that admission hurts.

They’ll sit together at a diner and she’ll ask if he remembers. They’ll walk together on the Brooklyn Bridge, long after the tourists and families have gone to bed, with only the lights of Manhattan as their witnesses, and he’ll ask if she remembers.

_“I just feel like…”_

_Natasha’s hand curls into his, squeezing it too tightly. “Like what?”_

_“Like you and I remember Budapest very differently.”_

Sometimes it’s a name, sometimes it’s a food choice, sometimes it’s the way he stares at her when she’s getting ready to take a shower. She never knows if he remembers for real or not. She never wants to ask. She only wants to fix what he took away, what she so desperately believes she can get back.

 

“ _I hate you_ ,” Natasha screams in the middle of Amsterdam as bombs explode in the distance and she fires guns and makes everyone else bleed. “ _I hate you_.”

Clint doesn’t answer and keeps firing arrows. One of them catches their target in the chest, another catches him in the shoulder. Another flies too close to Natasha’s face for her to be comfortable.

“ _You can’t erase me_ ,” she tries desperately as he continues to ignore her, and finally fed up, she steps into his line of fire as he raises his bow again.

_“You can’t erase me, Clint Barton.”_

The world fades to black.

 

“Why did you do it?” She needs to know. She _wants_ to know. “What was so bad about us that you needed to completely forget?”

“I…” Clint trails off, looking lost and guilty, and rubs a hand over his face, scraping his hand over a rugged goatee. “I was too screwed up. I messed it all up.”

“If you messed it all up, you should’ve just come back,” Natasha says, threading their fingers together. “You think I’m not messed up, too? I'm as bad as you, Clint. I would’ve taken you back, no matter what. You know that.”

“I know,” he says. “I know that, now.” He stares out at the water and Natasha follows his gaze, the sea moving back and forth in front of them like a mesmerizing film.

“It’s not too late, is it?”

If Natasha was any other person, she would say yes. If Natasha loved him any less, she would say yes. If Natasha wasn’t as screwed up as _he_ was, she would say yes.

“No,” she says softly, putting her head on his shoulder. “It’s never too late.”

 

 _Meet me in Montauk_ , she says, and he hears it but forgets.

_Meet me in Montauk._

 

_They’re huddled together in an alley that seems too exposed, but it’s the only place that they’ve been able to find in which they can hide themselves without going too far._

_“How are you?” Natasha asks once they’ve had a chance to breathe. She’s checked him over and over again while they had run, but moving quickly had afforded little time for her to show any real concern._

_“I’ll live,” Clint says, and even in the dark, Natasha can see how pale his face is. The bullet had gotten him in the stomach, it was a clean exit wound at least but most likely it had torn at an artery or something equally serious, and he was losing blood faster than she was comfortable with._

_“I’ve radioed SHIELD and they should be here within the hour, at least,” Natasha says, helping him so that he’s propped up against the dirty wall. “Fortunately, the blast and commotion was already enough to alert them before we sent our own signal.”_

_“One thing that’s gone right,” Clint mutters, and Natasha notices that his breathing is getting shallower. “How are you?”_

_“You’re the one who’s dying.”_

_“I’m not dying,” he pants out. “Yet. Got at least another eight lives in me.”_

_“Oh, well, that makes me feel better,” Natasha says sarcastically, hoping that her words will deflect him from continuing to prod into her feelings, but no such luck. Natasha thinks she should know better, it was never that easy._

_“I need to know that you’re okay.”_

_Natasha curls her lip. She had escaped the situation without any physical injuries, save for a sprained ankle that was still walkable and a healthy number of cuts and bruises that she knows will probably hurt more in 24 hours. But she's not dumb enough to assume that’s what Clint’s referring to._

_“There’s nothing you could’ve done,” he continues raggedly. “The building was going. You couldn’t make a different call. There was no time.”_

_That, at least, was true, even if she didn’t want to believe it. Everything had gone to hell too quickly for them to process it, and the only thing they had been able to do was fight for survival._

And still. _It had been one thing to choose to ignore the girl, because that wasn’t Natasha’s life anymore, and she hated everything that the Red Room had made her._

_It had been another thing to watch her die after having her plead for her life, when Natasha knew she would be helpless._

_“I just wanted to get you out,” Natasha says, ignoring his words. She takes off her jacket and holds it against his injury, attempting to keep the blood from continuing its steady flow out of his body. “I wasn’t going to leave you there.”_

_She never would have thought she could choose her partner over anything, especially over someone she had, in a sense, grown up with._

_But she had never known how to love anyone until she met him, and she had never expected_ that _, either._

 

She doesn’t know what makes her go back to the beach. She only knows that she goes there because there is no place else _to_ go, because she’s out of options, because she’s only got one place in her life where something was ever considered a constant, and it's Montauk. He’s sitting on the steps of the beach house they’ve met in - the one they’ve screwed in - with his head in his hands.

“Do you ever stop and think about what we are?” she asks after a long moment, sitting down next to him. “We’re two people who are living, breathing…these amazing creatures who are _ruling_ the world but one day…one day, we’ll be nothing more than dust. Parts of the ocean, maybe, a reincarnation of ourselves in fish or water.”

Clint lifts his eyes and stares at the waves. “Let me guess: you’re going to tell me that at some point, we’ll be no less important than the grains of sand between our feet.”

Natasha looks a little surprised and then nods slowly. “Something like that.” She pauses. “Is this...is this a dream?”

Clint raises his head, shakes it once. “I don’t know. But if it is, I don’t want to wake up.”

“Me neither,” Natasha says softly, slipping her hand into his. It’s a warm and familiar weight, something firm and something tangible.

“I don’t think it’s a dream,” he continues after awhile. “If it was, I wouldn’t remember you. Or your words. Or our life. Or anything.”

Natasha’s breath hitches in her throat and she feels her mouth go dry with the question that she wants to ask, but doesn’t, because part of her is terrified at what the response will be.

“Budapest?” She keeps her voice quiet, a whisper against the churning wind and waves. “Do you remember Budapest?”

Clint raises his head and exhales slowly, loudly, closing his eyes. “Yes,” he says, putting his cheek against her hair, one hand circling her waist, and she thinks her scalp might be wet with his own tears.

_You told me you loved me._

“I remember Budapest.”


End file.
